Little Things that Irk You: Episode V

[gunrock]

Brad nailed it. Amend the 2nd amendment and make it illegal to own a gun not purchased before the date the amendment is made. Only allow single shot rifles available for sale with a license and license must be police vetted. Also make it illegal to pass on a gun to someone else (i.e it has to be scrapped at a police station and the license revoked). It will take many decades to rid the countries firearms and many more massacres will occur but in maybe 100 years or so the problem will start to diminish. Better to start now than just say 'too difficult, let's not bother'.

[nakamura]

Brad nailed it. Amend the 2nd amendment and make it illegal to own a gun not purchased before the date the amendment is made. Only allow single shot rifles available for sale with a license and license must be police vetted. Also make it illegal to pass on a gun to someone else (i.e it has to be scrapped at a police station and the license revoked). It will take many decades to rid the countries firearms and many more massacres will occur but in maybe 100 years or so the problem will start to diminish. Better to start now than just say 'too difficult, let's not bother'.

Bang on. Exactly what I said.

[QualityChimp]

Liked the videos from Wools and Randombs about shootings. The Charlie Brooker one had that amazing interview with Dr. Park Dietz's suggestions on not glorifying gunmen whilst juxtaposing examples of how the news channels did the opposite.

I like the line in Wools' video where the argument of self-defence is made ridiculous when people have assault rifles!

Just watched The Last Leg from Friday and they agree with most things we've said, both about gun laws and the press' insensitive handling of them. (It's on catchup until Friday).

[kryss]

Yep, weapons of war have no place in hunting, completely unjustifiable.

I've felt for a while that if you're hunting an animal, it should also be able to hunt you right back.

[JazzFunk]

Lol at us attempting to rearrange the basic brutal arts of the world.

Basically...if guns get outlawed, then the criminals have all the guns on the black market to rob us with and the good uns like me and you have no guns to fight back with.

And if the biggest government in the world with the biggest guns of all ARE criminals (with THE biggest guns in the world)...

If they ARE* criminals, that is, well...




*hehe

[BaronSqwelch]

The whole point of the second amendment is that you can have a gun to protect you from tyrannical governments though isn't it? Sending in the army to confiscate the guns would get those gun nuts on the war path!

When I was over there last, talking to a diner owner (when my stupid post office currency card got declined and my mate went off to the bank...protip take travellers cheques, even Universal Studios rejected it) he says that they can't even force in chip&pin card systems because people quote some amendment saying its unconstitutional!
If they can't get that done in a timely manner then the gun lobby won't ever let anything be done on that score!!

[Dogg Thang]

That is the reasoning for the 2nd amendment that seems to have been adopted by the masses in the US. But I remember seeing some historian interviewed years ago on it and he reckoned it was based on some old pre-existing law that was in place primarily to allow citizens to take up arms if under attack from invaders and only if organised by the state. Or something like that. Actually, I should go look that up...

Edit: no time to look this up properly but reasons of the original law included these:

enabling the people to organize a militia system.
participating in law enforcement;
deterring tyrannical government;
repelling invasion;
suppressing insurrection, allegedly including slave revolts;
facilitating a natural right of self-defense.

So, yes, it includes deterring tyrannical governments. But then also helps you beat down your naughty slaves. There is much more too it than that, including the history of it being tied into separating from the UK. Might look more into it later.

[fishbowlhead]

But but guys, your forgetting the terrorists. They could be anywhere, your neighbour, work colleague, even your dog!!! Least that's what bush told me, he wouldn't lie now would he? We most certainly need automatic assault rifles and 50calliber anti tank sniper rifles, if I can't punch through 10inch armour from half a mile away, well it's just unconstitutional.

[Dogg Thang]

Yep, there is always the terrorists. You've hit upon an important point. The US is pretty amazing in many regards and one of them, in my opinion, is how so many diverse people in diverse states across such a wide area, for all their differences, actually seem incredibly united as a country. One of the core ways they seem to do that is fear - fear of an outside enemy unites the people on the inside. Keeps them busy. Occupied. There is always an enemy and they are always at war (the UK is often just a few steps behind here but those steps count for a lot). USA! USA! USA! And so on.

Paranoia is a natural product of this system. And fear leads to aggression in the name of defense, whether on a country scale dropping bombs on some faraway nation or whether pulling a gun on your neighbour. You can see it in their cops. The US has clearly got a major problem with police violence and I'm willing to bet the common factor with a lot of those cops is that, deep down, they're probably just scared.

[Asura]

I completely agree with you. And yet what you actually wrote in that post I replied to was that, in some places in the US, owning a gun is perfectly reasonable. Not that some might argue it. So please forgive me if I picked that up incorrectly - it reads that way. And that, for me, has and always will be working against the problem. First step - call it a problem. For me (and again, just my own personal mindset), the second you start making it reasonable, you allow for the doubt whereas I feel the simplicity of the issue which we both recognise should be out in the open at all times.

Thing is, I do believe that. Don't get me wrong, I feel that the gun-loving people in America make a much bigger deal out of it than they really should, as the number of relevant places is relatively few, but there are still places in the USA (especially when you include Alaska) that you could describe as living on the frontier.

It's a bit obscure, but I saw a documentary years ago about people living in Oregon. It interviewed a couple who lived 50-odd miles away from the nearest other farmhouse, and 150 miles from the nearest urban centre. During the interview, you could hear the wolves in the distance. The couple talked about how, every so often, one of them would get too close for comfort and try to steal one of their animals, or kill one of their dogs, and the owner had to get out his rifle and shoot them. He didn't usually aim to kill, but rather just to scare the animal away, though naturally he had killed a few over the two decades they'd lived there.

Those people need a hunting rifle. It's no different to a spanner, or a screwdriver, or a rake. It's just something those people need. This doesn't explain away military-grade handguns, automatic rifles, machine guns or any other stuff.

It made me reflect on how gun culture in the USA is different to in the UK, because we simply don't have that situation here. You're never going to run into a pack of wolves while walking around Snowdonia.

This doesn't excuse the sheer amount of problems the USA has with guns. It doesn't even start to do that. It's just important to recognise that there are those people in the USA, perhaps few in number, who possess a firearm for entirely legitimate purposes - and that's why the picture isn't as simple as just completely banning all firearms.

[gunrock]

Some really good points, Dogg. The swearing allegiance to the US of A, upholding the constitution and the good ol' stars and stripes, means that people are US citizens first and foremost and a lot less prone to kill each other on ideological or theological grounds. However, the US seems to breed a lot of sociopath/psychopath types and serial killers. Then there's causal violence (poverty and environment, substance abuse etc.) perpetrated by gang-bangers and criminals (pimps, pushers etc.) to casual violence by anyone who loses control (arguments, vendettas, relationships or just 'a bad day') and who has access to a gun.
It's a massive problem for them.

[Dogg Thang]

Many farmers legally own shotguns over here to use against foxes and so on eating their chickens. That is not different and it's not specific to the US in any way that should justify or contribute to their gun culture.

[nakamura]

The USA is anything but United. It is a group of separate countries set under the game government with some vaguely similar laws. It's a complete mess.

[EvilBoris]

There is definitely a whole other part of America that is hard for someone from the UK to visualise or comprehend the scale of. As you say, there are those places where a rifle might be necessary.
I was talking to a couple in San Fransciso who were farmers somewhere in the wilds, as you described they were literally in the middle of nowhere. They said they didn't have locks on their doors as there was nobody else for miles around (that must be why people always walk into empty houses in the movies). They said they occasionally had a bear come and try to steal and animal or rummaging through a bin

[QualityChimp]

To put into context Americans' reluctance to give up their weapons, when we spoke about the potential that violence in video games might have had an influence on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, the majority of us dismissed it as poppycock, because we know it won't make us go on a murderous rampage, so why should we give them up?

Your standard gun-toting American knows that owning a gun won't make them go on a murderous rampage, so why should they give them up?

I remember Jim Carrey getting a drubbing for dropping out of the Kick-Ass 2 publicity because, post-Sandy Hook, he re-assessed his stance on movie violence.